


Ethical Gray Areas

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, M/M, Vanessa Gottlieb/Hermann Gottlieb - Freeform, but no relationship moments between them really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt and Hermann are college roomates, and all Newt knows about Professor Chau is that he's a mad man and lunatic. Turns out, he's kind of totally and completely Newt's type.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ethical Gray Areas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleAlternativeGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleAlternativeGirl/gifts).



> Beta by the awesome the_wordbutler. Supposedly a 3-sentence AU. Ha! Could you imagine?!

“He is a mad man and a lunatic,” Hermann tells Newt when Newt asks if he’s ever heard anything about Professor Chau.

“Aren’t those the same things?” Newt asks. “Like, you can’t be both a mad man and a lunatic.”

“Me? No. Because I am sane. You, on the other hand, do it perfectly well.”

“Oh, ha ha fuck you,” Newt replies. “Come on, Hermann, seriously. Anything other than the one-stars on Rate My Professor? Because you and I both know that people are way more likely--statistically, of course--to leave reviews when mad, so it’s likely the numbers are way biased.”

“Vanessa had him last semester,” Hermann says. “And she says he is a mad man and a lunatic.”

That actually has some weight. Where Hermann hates everyone and everything that isn’t a number, Vanessa, or Newt himself (though Hermann laughed in derision when Newt said it once, Newt and Hermann have also been roommates in tiny little dorm rooms three years running), Vanessa actually understands that people function through emotions and stuff. How Hermann managed to not only start but maintain a relationship with her, Newt has no idea, but they seem to work all right.

“Huh,” Newt says. He scrolls through the options for his class and shrugs. “Well, it’s the only one that fits in my schedule, so I guess I’m fucked with the crazy man.”

“If you become more of a gibbering idiot, I will not visit you when I have you hospitalized.”

“But you will have me hospitalized,” Newt says. “That’s some caring right there.”

Hermann rolls his eyes and goes back to reading his advanced stats book. Newt clicks the box next to the course option and waits for the page to update to show him he is now enrolled in Professor Chau’s Synthetic Biology class. Nothing doing now but to wait for this semester to end and the next one to begin and find out what he’s in for.

*

On the third day of finals, on Newt’s second day without sleep, Hermann finds him tucked into a carrel in the library very carefully stacking all his bone-dry paper coffee cups.

“Enough of that, then,” Hermann says and hauls him up and drags him determinedly away. Newt remembers when Hermann pulled this trick the first time, how surprised he’d been that Hermann had the strength and agility with his bad leg to move Newt along so easily.

“You’re not the boss of me,” he mumbles, already almost asleep on Hermann’s shoulder.

“Yes, I am,” Hermann replies. “Though I look forward to passing the responsibility to someone else.”

“Hey, I talked to Vanessa about Chau,” Newt says as they take the elevator to the library lobby. “She says he is a lunatic and a mad man, but he’s also really smart and grades tough but fair. You left out that part. The tough but fair.”

“Because she hadn’t mentioned it to me,” Hermann says. “Why are you even thinking of him? You need to make it through this term first.”

“I think I wrote my final paper for my Military History class in German,” Newt says, not really hearing Hermann or himself. “You think Professor Pentecost will count off?”

“I suppose it depends if he knows German,” Hermann says, and the elevator dings, and he drags Newt back to their room to get some sleep.

*

“Hey!” Newt yelps in surprise four days later. “Pentecost knows German, and I got an extra five points for using the subjunctive correctly!”

“Well done,” Hermann says. He’s packing the last of his bags, headed home for the holidays. Newt is staying put, as always, preferring to sleep in and work a few extra shifts at the computer labs than drag all his shit home just to have to drag it back two weeks later.

“Awesome. 4.0 and a little extra,” Newt adds. “How’d you do?”

“I have not yet looked,” Hermann says. He never does check until he’s home. Newt thinks it’s sort of sweet that he waits until he can show the grades to his folks in person. “I will e-mail you when I see them.”

“Sweet. Say hi to everyone for me.”

“I shall.”

Hermann leaves, and Newt makes instant mac and cheese and sits on his bed in his underwear and starts to design his next tattoo. He goes to work, comes back to the room, orders a pizza, and considers his options for the evening and the next two weeks. He could play some video games, get a jump on next semester’s reading, or he could go out, have a few beers, and maybe find someone to go home with for the night.

He’s in a clean button-down and jeans and out the door after scarfing down four pieces of pizza. There’s a couple of solid dive bars near campus, but Newt decides on something slightly classier; nothing so far up he’s gonna pay double digits for a drink, but some place where he might be able to have a conversation without having to shout over a jukebox or crappy local band.

He ends up halfway across town, in a place called Hansen’s. He’s been here before; it’s a father-son operation and they’ve got a lot of different beers on tap. Newt sits at the bar, orders a beer, and watches the crowd move in and out. Halfway through his second beer, a man sits next to him, orders a whiskey and a beer in a huge bass voice, and gives Newt a hard side-eye.

“Little young to be in here, aren’t you?” he asks. He is at least a foot taller than Newt, wearing an embroidered suit jacket that should look ridiculous except he’s got broad shoulders and good hands, and there’s an undertone to his voice that makes Newt wish he could adjust himself without being obvious.

“Nope,” he says, and he leaves it at that, taking a long drink of his beer and curling his toes in his shoes.

“Hrm,” the man says. They sit in silence, drinking their beers. Newt orders an appetizer along with a third beer, waits for the big guy to be halfway down his second pint before he starts working on his own.

“I’m twice your size, son,” the man says. “Trying to catch me up to you is going to take more than half a pint.”

“Maybe,” Newt says, feeling brave and a little reckless at the way this guy is looking at him. “Or maybe I’m just making sure I’m sober enough to hold you down later.” It’s a risk, one that’s gotten Newt turned down before, but the big guy breaks into a grin and leans in closer, hand sliding onto Newt’s knee and up his thigh.

“If you think you can,” he says.

“I’ll definitely try,” Newt replies. The big guy chuckles, close to his ear, and Newt reaches down, takes the guy’s hand, and moves it another inch up his thigh himself. “I’m Newt,” he says.

“Hannibal Chau,” the big guy says just as Newt takes another drink of his beer.

Newt’s beer goes spraying across the bar top. “Shit.”

*

“You didn’t tell me he was hot!” Newt yells at Vanessa an hour later over Skype.

Vanessa is laughing, and that seems unfair. “I don’t think he’s hot,” she replies. “He’s not my type at all.”

Newt considers Hermann--tiny, bird-boned Hermann--and he considers Professor Chau-- _who he almost picked up at a bar_ \--and he sees what she means. Doesn’t make it right, though. “You couldn’t have mentioned at some point that he’s a mad man and a lunatic and also way my type?”

“I don’t know your type!” Vanessa says, still laughing. “Hell, Newt, when we met, you told me you’d go for Hermann if he was interested.”

“Oh, never in a million universes,” comes distantly from a corner of the room on Vanessa’s end.

“Love you, too, Hermann. Thanks for that ego boost,” Newt replies. He drops his head into his hands, looks at Vanessa through his fingers, and asks, “What is the social protocol for getting hit on by your future professor and being into it and then running away because holy shit what.”

Vanessa gives him a sympathetic smile. “I am a somewhat socially awkward scientist dating the world’s crankiest scientist--”

“I blame my roommate,” Hermann chimes in again.

“So I don’t know,” Vanessa continues with a quick, exasperated look over her shoulder. “Just, don’t go back to the bar and don’t make eye contact in class, and I’m sure it’ll blow over.”

“Really?”

Vanessa shrugs. “No idea. But probably, right?”

“Sure,” Newt says with no conviction. “You’re probably right.”

*

Synthetic Bio is a Monday, Wednesday, Friday class with a lab Newt managed to cram directly after class on Fridays. It is Newt’s second class of the day, and by the time he gets there, he is so jazzed on caffeine and general stress he’s pretty sure he’s gonna vomit.

When he walks in, Professor Chau isn’t there, and there’s no one who resembles a TA near the lectern. It calms him. Professor Chau probably won’t even remember him. Or, if he does, he’ll probably just pause for a second and go on and it’ll be awkward the first couple of times Newt speaks up in class, but it’ll be okay. He’s an adult. The Professor’s an adult. It was awkward but nothing ethically sketchy happened. It’s going to be fine.

Newt sits in the second row, gets out his laptop, and looks up as Chau enters the room. He’s wearing another ridiculous coat, black trousers, and a pair of shoes with gold spats. He’s got a stack of papers and a ledger in one hand, and he’s flipping a pen between his fingers with the other. When he surveys the room, he doesn’t glance at Newt and glance away like Newt expected. He outright stares for a moment, face impassive, but Newt is pretty sure his insides are melting, and not in an unpleasant way.

Precisely at one o’clock, Professor Chau looks up from his papers and says, “Synthetic Biology, Professor Chau. I don’t want to run behind, so you get thirty seconds to get lost if you’re in the wrong place.”

No one moves. The room is just over half-full. Three people look outright terrified. Professor Chau nods and flips through his ledger, page-by-page. “I don’t do get-to-know-you games. I don’t care who you are or why you’re here or what your major is. You will show up for class. You will show up for lab. You will turn everything in on time. You will schedule meetings with me during my office hours only. I do answer e-mail but not if the question is shit, and you will not be getting my phone number.” He glances up as he smoothes the pages on the ledger and smiles like he’s secretly a super villain. “And I’m tenured, so good luck getting rid of me if you think I’m an asshole. Abernathy, Terrance.”

“Here,” comes a voice from the back of the room, clearly spooked.

Newt wishes he were spooked. Newt wishes he was scared to hell and back. But he is not. He is, instead, pretty fucking turned on. This is unfair. He is an adult. But Professor Chau keeps flipping the pen between his fingers while he reads off names, and he’s got really wide shoulders and his hands are huge, and his shoes are huge, and you know what they say about a man with--

“Geiszler, Newt.” He says it Gez-ler.

“Guyz-ler” Newt corrects. He’s the first person to say anything besides “here” or “present.” And his brain almost fizzles when he realizes he doesn’t have to correct ‘Newton’ to ‘Newt’ for once because he’s already introduced himself. In a bar. When his hot professor was feeling him up.

Professor Chau looks over the tops of his glasses at Newt. “Excuse me?”

“It’s Guyz-ler,” Newt says, shutting down his train of thought as hard as he can. “Newt Gieszler.”

“Noted,” Professor Chau says, and he looks at Newt for another second before going back to the roll. That look does not help Newt’s turned-on problem. The lecture will help, Newt thinks. The lecture will dampen any lingering sexual impulses he has, probably. His brain will engage on a higher level of intelligence, and it will distract him from the fact that Professor Chau has a really strong chin and is wearing a waistcoat that appears to have a pocket watch attached.

“Let’s get started,” Professor Chau says. He closes the ledger, pushes buttons on the lectern, and the screen unfurls from the ceiling as the projector powers on.

This is good, Newt thinks. Science will clear his brain. Science will make him not-horny.

And then Professor Chau starts lecturing, and his voice is different, a little richer, a little deeper, more from his chest, and he is still flipping his pen between his fingers.

_SHIT_

Newt writes as his first note for the class.

*

Hermann isn’t in the room when Newt gets back. The carefully hand-written schedule on Hermann’s calendar whiteboard tells Newt Hermann’s got back-to-back classes until three. Perfect. Newt’s got a little under an hour to jerk off and maybe even consider why Professor Chau is hitting him so hard in the pleasure center of his brain.

Newt dumps his books, strips out of his jeans and boxers, and lies back on his bed. He strokes himself two, three, four times, and he’s fully erect, his dick flushing dark red. Newt closes his eyes and keeps stroking, pictures Professor Chau at the lectern, the way the crappy fluorescent lighting hit the shiny threads on his coat, the gold on his shoes, glinted off the chain of the pocket watch in his waistcoat. He pictures them at the bar, Chau’s hand on his thigh, remembers how he moved that hand higher.

He comes hard, groaning and arching his back and forcing himself not to yell because he’s gotten warned about that before by the guys in the next room. His hand is sticky, and his dick is soft, and he really, really hopes that this takes care of the problem. Maybe that’s all he needed, he thinks, to have an orgasm while thinking about Professor Chau. Maybe it was just leftover sexual frustration, and now that he’s done it, it’ll be fine.

*

It is not fine. On Wednesday, Newt chances looking up from his notes and sees Professor Chau grin to himself as he says something that gets a timid but honest laugh from the class. On Friday, Newt doesn’t lift his eyes from his work and gets to lab feeling like he’ll make it through all right until Professor Chau walks in. Turns out he supervises the lab sections personally, which not one single person Newt’s talked to in the class has mentioned. Fuckers.

He has to leave the lab halfway through so he can go to the restroom and jerk off. When he gets back, Professor Chau gives him a long look that makes Newt think he knows somehow, though how he would know, Newt isn’t sure. He wasn’t gone that long, and he knows he’s not flushed. He checked.

“Mr. Geiszler,” Professor Chau says as everyone is packing up. “A moment of your time.”

Newt manages not to squeak, simply nods and waits for the room to empty out. Once it’s just the two of them, Professor Chau steps over and flips through Newt’s lab notebook. “Disorganized,” he says.

“It’s not,” Newt replies. “It looks that way to you, but I’ve got a system.”

“Don’t fun me, son. This is a mess.”

Newt yanks the notebook out from under Chau’s hands and flips back two pages. “No, it’s not. Look. It’s explainable. I made a legend.”

Chau reviews the legend and holds out his hand for the notebook. When Newt passes it to him, Chau’s fingers overlap his, and he doesn’t let go right away. “Tell me,” Chau says, and he’s practically looming over Newt now, taller and broader and just all around _bigger_ in the way that makes Newt want to climb him. He’s done it to guys before. He’s nimble. “Your other professors let you get away with lab work this messy?”

“It’s not messy. There’s a legend.” Chau’s fingers tighten on his for a moment, and Newt can’t help the way his breath catches.

“You scared of me?” Chau asks.

“No,” Newt says before he can stop himself. “That is definitely not the problem.”

Chau grins, and this close, he looks like a shark about to take a bite. Newt could be into that. “Been thinking about you since Hansen’s,” he says, voice low and smooth. “You been thinking about me?”

“Yeah.” Newt hears the breathiness in his voice and finds he doesn’t care.

Chau tries to step forward, but Newt doesn’t give ground. When their chests bump, he reaches down and curls his fingers in the chain of Chau’s pocket watch. “Heh,” Chau says, and he finally lets go of Newt’s notebook. He gives Newt a hard, hot once-over, and then he reaches down and hooks a finger into Newt’s belt loop, tugging him in even closer. “The things I want to do to you,” he murmurs.

“You barely know me,” Newt says as his fingers tighten in the watch chain.

“Doesn’t make the list any shorter,” Chau replies.

Chau kisses him, and he lingers when he does it, mouth ghosting across Newt’s. Newt kisses back, and he considers the exact implications of giving his professor a blow job in the middle of an empty lab room.

He pulls away, and Chau doesn’t follow, just licks the corner of his mouth and watches him. “Ethically speaking,” Newt says, “I think we’ve hit a major roadblock.”

“You’re assuming I’m concerned with ethics,” Chau replies. He palms Newt’s hip with his free hand, stares at his mouth for a moment, and takes a step back, breaking contact.

Newt feels like his brain is folding over on itself indefinitely, unable to hold it still enough to form a coherent response. “I…” He shakes his head, but that doesn’t clear the cobwebs. “Um.” _Why’d you back away,_ he thinks, but that is really the last question he needs to ask. “I am not running away,” he says as he reaches for his notebook and his backpack, “I just--yeah, the ethics thing. I gotta figure that out.”

He turns and he leaves, forcing himself not to look back. When he gets back to the room, it’s 3:30, and Hermann is there, organizing his homework by preference as he does every Friday afternoon. Newt throws his backpack on his bed, paces in a tight circle--he’s not allowed to pace on Hermann’s side of the room--considers not mentally scarring Hermann for life, and says, “If I do all my coursework for Synth Bio and get it graded before fucking Professor Chau, does that clear me ethically, you think?”

“You have officially lost your damned mind, and I don’t want to hear--”

“He kissed me, and he’s super tall, and I’m pretty sure there are cameras in the labs, so I really hope there’s not a break-in so they have to review the tapes--”

“--your derelict behavior with your crazy professor who is clearly missing knowledge of the finer points of the conduct code for faculty and staff, and how could you possibly--”

“I’m pretty sure I could do all the coursework this weekend. I mean, it would jam up the works for my other work, but if I get Synth Bio wiped out, that’ll clear up all kinds of time on other stuff, and I couldn’t do the labs all at once because that’d be unfair to my lab partner, but I bet the TA grades all that stuff anyway. I mean, have you ever heard of a prof who actually grades labs?”

“--wreck your GPA if you can’t actually pull it off, and how is that good for you?”

Newt stops cold, turns on his heel, and looks at Hermann. “Did you just end on an argument for me fucking my prof?”

“No,” Hermann says. He pushes his glasses up his nose and wiggles his left ankle. “I merely speculated that if you decide to go through with this ethically wrecked plan to do...that...you risk damage to your GPA, and given that I am well aware what you go through to achieve your grades, it is a variable worth weighing properly.” Hermann adjusts his glasses again. “Alternatively, have you considered dropping the class and picking it up during a different term?”

“But Synth Bio is so cool!” Newt replies.

“And you need it for your major, I presume,” Hermann says. His mouth puckers then twists when Newt rocks back on his heels and fails miserably at looking like a wide-eyed innocent. “You do not require it for your major,” Hermann amends. “Does it,” he pauses to heave a sigh, “at _least_ fulfill an important elective?”

“Not since I jammed all my 300-level electives into summer term last year.”

“Ah, yes, the 18-hour summer term when I considered murder,” Hermann damn near growls. His eyes are narrowed, nostrils flared. “And here we are, not even two years later, and I find myself plotting murder again. Because you are having a ridiculous panic over an issue that could be solved by simply dropping a class you don’t need.”

“But Synth Bio is so cool!” Newt says, this time throwing his arms in the air to make his point. “It’s awesome, Hermann. It’s all about--”

“I don’t care.”

“--and splicing it with other--”

“I continue not to care.”

“And it’s not like people are making monsters or anything; it’s about using DNA in new sequences--”

“I STILL CONTINUE NOT TO CARE.”

Newt snaps his mouth shut, and he jams his hands into his pockets. He stares at the floor for a few seconds. “I really like the material.”

“So much so that putting yourself into the ethical pretzel of starting an affair with your professor is worth the subject matter?”

Newt scrubs at his hair and looks up at Hermann. Hermann looks like he’s been sucking a rancid lemon, clearly displeased that he’s found himself in the position of Newt’s relationship confidante. “Should I be talking to Vanessa about this?” he asks.

Hermann rolls his eyes. “I daresay she would recommend you go for it no matter the ethical or GPA consequences, given her occasional appreciation for romance novels.”

“Yeah?” Newt asks. “You think?”

“I will not presume to speak for her.”

*

“I don’t know,” Vanessa says twenty minutes later. She’s sitting on the couch next to Newt in the common area of his and Hermann’s floor. It’s the dead time between the end of classes for the week and everyone hurrying up to get out and get drunk before they have to be responsible on Saturday and maybe get some work done. “I mean, if it was more than just wanting to have sex with him, I’d say screw ethics, heart to the wind and all that. But you just want to have sex with him, right?”

“Yeah,” Newt says. “A lot. Does it matter that it’s a lot?”

Vanessa grins at him. “No, but nice try.”

Newt rolls his head back and forth on the back of the couch. “I really could do all the coursework, I think. Dad’s always had a thing for Synth Bio, so he taught me a bunch. Hell, I could probably teach the class if I really wanted to.”

“So why not drop it, get hot for teacher, and talk to him about it afterwards?”

“Because maybe I don’t know everything I think I do. Maybe Dad doesn’t know. Maybe there’s stuff Professor Chau knows that I haven’t thought about or that I forgot, and just talking about it all loose and stuff may not make those things come up.”

“The problem you have,” Vanessa says, “is that you’re equally horny and scientific.”

“I know!” Newt throws his hands in the air and holds them up there, grasping at empty air. “I mean, he’s my big, brawny type, all right? And he’s clearly into me, and I would really be okay just dropping the class and doing something else or just not having a class at all--”

“How many credits are you at this semester?” Vanessa asks. Unlike Hermann, she’s got a way of speaking that actually interrupts Newt.

“27, I think. Maybe 28.”

“You could afford to drop a class, if for no other reason than to give your brain a break.”

“But I might miss something!”

Vanessa leans her head on her hand and shrugs. “Just because you miss something doesn’t mean you can’t go back and do it later, Newt. You don’t have to do everything all at once.”

“But then I’ll be bored.”

“Have you ever been bored in your life?”

Newt thinks about that. “I dunno. Maybe? Probably on a road trip once. Road trips are the worst.”

“That’s actually a no. Look, I can’t give you a good answer, and Hermann can’t give you a good answer because neither of us know what you actually want to do besides have sex with the prof, and Hermann is probably scarred for life from just the thought, and I can’t speak as to whether or not it’s the best idea.”

Newt crosses his arms and slouches further into the couch. “Yeah.” He looks down the hallway where his room is and where Hermann is currently studying. “You really think he’s scarred for life?”

“You know him; there’s a set of rules of how to behave, and they do not include lusting after your professor.”

“Well, he’s got you,” Newt points out, and he grins when Vanessa rolls her eyes and tugs at his ear. “I’m serious. He’s crazy about you.”

“Lucky for him, it’s mutual,” Vanessa replies. “Now, I’m gonna go make him eat something, and you’re going to make a decision.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

*

Professor Chau has office hours Mondays and Wednesday for two hours before class. Newt shows up exactly at 11 and finds the office door open and Chau sitting at a desk that takes up most of the room. He’s flipping through lab notebooks.

“You can’t seriously grade the lab notebooks yourself,” Newt says in greeting when he’d meant to start with pretty much anything else.

Professor Chau looks at him over the tops of his glasses, not an assessing look or a sexual look like before, but a slightly annoyed look like maybe he not-so-secretly hates office hours. “Something I can do for you, Mr. Geiszler?”

“Wanted to talk to you about a personal matter,” Newt says and closes the door when Chau nods it’s okay. Once the door is closed, Newt pulls off his backpack and puts it in the single chair on his side of the desk. He reaches into it, pulls out a stack of papers, and holds them out. “So, I have this personal conflict that means I won’t be in class for awhile, maybe, and I thought you’d want whatever work I could do as a show of good faith.”

Chau eyes the papers before taking them. He flips through them loosely at first, then goes back to the beginning and starts to review them closely. Newt puts his backpack on the floor and sits in the chair, hands on his knees. He jiggles his legs then makes himself stop. Chau goes through every assignment thoroughly, making a few notes but giving away nothing. Newt counts to 100, then 200, then he starts singing the Elements Song in his head.

“You’re humming,” Chau says a few minutes later.

“You’re staring at my homework like it’s a secret code,” Newt replies.

Chau looks up at that, grinning. “You wanna tell me why you’re wasting your time in a beginner-level Synthetic BIology class when you just handed me half of the coursework in one go?”

“It’s so cool! I figure there’s stuff you could teach me.”

Chau lays the papers out on his desk, fanning them with one large hand that Newt is totally not staring at. “Son, half of what’s here isn’t even part of my class. You’re grad-level with some of your answers.”

“Really?” Newt asks. He shakes his head. “No. That’s not possible. I’m not--I haven’t actually studied-studied this stuff. I mean, I used my book to find some answers, but the rest is just what I remember my dad teaching me.”

“Well, he taught you well.” And now Chau’s looking at him differently. It takes a second for Newt to figure out he’s getting checked out. Hard. Like at the bar. But there’s something else there, something under just the attraction.

“Uh,” Newt says.

“You’re above and beyond the curve; in fact, you’ll wreck the hell out of it. I can’t have that.”

“You’re tenured,” Newt replies, almost desperately happy to find he has a response. “Why do you care?”

Chau laughs, a chest-deep, bass sound that makes Newt writhe a little bit in his chair. Chau sees it, his eyes flash hot and promising, and Newt feels all his good intentions start to go out the window.

“Look, you need to know,” he says as he stands up and checks to make sure the door is closed-closed. Oh, look, it has a lock. He turns it. “I didn’t come here to entice you into filthy office sex, but now I’m thinking you’re about to offer me something--”

“An A for starters,” Chau says. “All this,” he waves his hand at the papers on his desk, “is more than enough to justify it.”

“And then wh--”

“Where were you going to be?” Chau interrupts, standing up from the desk and coming around it. “What’s this personal issue you were having, Mr. Geiszler?”

“Wanting to fuck my professor through the floor, mostly,” Newt says. “And I like a midday nap, and class sort of ruined that.”

“Is that right?” Chau steps forward, and Newt lets himself get pushed back by the sheer size of him.

“I might be lying about the nap,” Newt says, and he rolls his hips forward when Chau settles his hand there.

“Anything else you’re lying about?”

“Nope. Just the nap.” Newt runs his hands over Chau’s vest, up his jacket lapels, and curls his fingers under the suit jacket collar, tugging until Chau bends down to meet him.

The kiss is different than the first one, harder and more insistent. Newt bites at Chau’s lip, and Chau squeezes his hips hard, slides his hands around to cup his ass.

“Hold!” Newt yelps. Chau freezes. “Not because I’m not liking it,” Newt says, and he grins when Chau massages his ass. “But I’m kind of...completely loud, and I’m betting this office is not soundproofed for that.”

Chau grins. “Smart boy.” He runs his hands up Newt’s back and bends down to mouth at his throat when Newt arches his back and lifts his chin. “I could pet you all night,” he says.

“I’ve got nothing going on after the one o’clock class I don’t have anymore,” Newt says. “Meet you at Hansen’s at two-thirty?”

“Don’t think the bathroom there’s soundproofed enough, either.”

Newt yanks at Chau’s waistcoat so they’re pressed together hard. Chau responds by muttering something Newt doesn’t catch and biting the top of his ear. “Yeah, but I live in a fucking shoebox on campus with a roommate, and I’m betting you’ve got at least an apartment.”

“A house. With a very large bed.”

Newt reaches down and palms Chau through his trousers. “I can see why.”

“You always this much of a tease?”

“Teases don’t put out.” Newt glances over at the clock on the wall. 11:35. “You got any other appointments before class?”

Chau reaches over and flicks off the office light. “Looks like I’m out.”

“You’re about to be,” Newt says, and he flattens his palms against Chau’s chest and pushes. Chau doesn’t move, grinning down at Newt. Newt shoves again, and Chau gives ground, step by step, lets Newt manhandle him until he’s falling into his desk chair.

“Think you can boss me around?” Chau asks as Newt drops to his knees and slides his hands up and down Chau’s thighs.

“Pretty sure you’ll let me get away with a lot to get your dick sucked,” Newt says. He rubs his thumbs at the join of Chau’s legs and his hips, and Chau opens his legs wider. “That’s what I thought.”

Chau chuckles and cups roughly at Newt’s face, sliding his thumb against Newt’s lips before pressing Newt’s bottom lip. He makes a sound like a growl when Newt sucks his thumb in with one long, slow pull and cups him through his trousers at the same time. “Sure you can be quiet enough when you do this?” Chau asks.

Newt pulls away until Chau’s thumb falls from his mouth. “Way quieter with something in my mouth,” he says with a grin as he undoes Chau’s belt. “I’m more worried about you.”

“You’re a cheeky little--” Chau cuts off with a hard indrawn breath as Newt reaches into his underwear and pulls out his dick.

“Hrm,” Newt hums with a smirk as he strokes Chau up and down his length. He is, Newt is delighted to learn, exactly as proportional as a man with such big shoes should be. Not that Newt’s a size queen, precisely, but he likes having to work for it a little, likes pushing his limits just to see what will happen. He sucks the head into his mouth and presses his hands hard against Chau’s thighs when he cants his hips.

“It’s like that, is it?”

Newt doesn’t answer. He breathes through his nose and takes a little more into his mouth. It’s not the length that’s got him concentrating, it’s the girth. Newt almost giggles at the realization that Chau really is big _all_ over, but he learned the hard way giggling leads to shifting which can lead to choking, and that really puts a damper on sex.

Chau reaches down and cups Newt’s jaw again. He traces the underside of it, then up to Newt’s ear. Newt tilts his head back, eyes half-closed, moaning around Chau’s dick at how nice that feels. “Pet you all night,” Chau murmurs. He reaches further back, curls his hand into the hair on the back of Newt’s head. “All right?” he asks.

Newt responds by groaning more deeply and taking another inch into his mouth. When Chau tightens his hold just a little--not enough to truly tug, but enough to be felt--Newt digs his hands into Chau’s thighs, takes another two inches into his mouth, and grunts in approval when Chau swears under his breath but doesn’t tighten his hold or buck up from the chair. Newt manages to let go of Chau’s left thigh and wrap his hand around the rest of the shaft, working it in counterpoint to his sucking and bobbing.

“Hell,” Chau mutters and lets go of Newt to grip the arms of his chair. Newt adjusts his grip on Chau’s dick, and Chau shifts, trying to hold back and wait a little longer, make it last a little--

Newt pulls back and swallows as Chau comes. When he’s finished--slumped back in his chair, head fallen back, smiling like he’s won a race--Newt sucks on the head of his dick one last time before pulling off completely and leaning back on his heels. “So, I’m pretty good at that.”

Chau chuckles. “Apparently.” He looks down at Newt, still on the floor, and holds out a hand. “Get up here.”

“I told you, I’m loud,” Newt says even as he grips Chau’s hand and allows himself to be manhandled onto his lap.

“Not when there’s something in your mouth,” Chau says, and he slides two fingers into Newt’s mouth before undoing his jeans and jerking him off in one huge hand. Newt tongue fucks the space between his fingers and presses in hard, gripping Chau’s shoulder with one hand while grasping the arm of the chair with the other. He comes with his back arched, Chau’s fingers slipping out of his mouth at the tail end of a high-pitched whine.

Newt drops his head to Chau’s shoulder and holds on as Chau wipes his hand on a handkerchief and then gets Newt back to presentable condition. “So,” Newt says when Chau’s hands come to rest on his back, “we still gonna meet at Hansen’s, or was this a one and done?”

“Gotta pick your brain on some of the things in your homework,” Chau says. “You looked like an easy lay when I saw you the first time, but now I know you’re smart, too. I like ‘em smart.”

“Lucky you,” Newt says, raising his head and grinning. “I’m smart as hell.”

*

Newt gets back to the room just before one. Hermann is there, packing his bag and talking to Vanessa about whether they’re going to the dining hall for lunch or whether they’ll actually go off-campus before Hermann’s two o’clock class.

“I got an A,” Newt announces, throwing his arms up in victory. “And a handjob!”

“No,” Hermann mutters, shutting his eyes and turning away. “No. No. No. No. No. No. No.”

“Go outside, honey,” Vanessa says, giving him a consoling pat on the shoulder as he flees.

“Probably shouldn’t have said that last part,” Newt says.

“I’m the one who’s going to have to hear about it,” Vanessa replies. “So, you owe me a drink.”

“And details?”

“A drink will suffice.” She looks him over as though checking for damage. “An A? Really?”

“Apparently the stuff I know about Synth Bio is grad-level,” Newt says with a shrug. “We’re gonna hit Hansen’s later and talk about it.”

“Really?” Vanessa grins. “Do you have a hot professor boyfriend now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, I still haven’t called him by his first name, so I think we’re still in a very weird fuck buddies mode.”

“Well, enjoy it, however it’s classified. If it all works out well to the end of semester and the last bit of the ethical grayness fades out, maybe we can all get dinner.”

“No!” Hermann practically roars through the closed door. “Am I not horrified enough for you, woman?”

Vanessa shakes her head. “I believe that’s my cue.”

“He’s not subtle, our cranky turtle man.”

Hermann pokes his head in the door and glares at Newt. “I know where you sleep, Geiszler. Call me that again, and you’ll be sleeping in pieces.”

“Copy that!” Newt says with a sloppy salute, and he waves goodbye as they leave. “Well,” he says to the empty room. “Not a bad day.”

*

**Epilogue:**

Having no reason to go to Synthetic Bio and not wanting to give away the fact that he’s fucking his professor when Hannibal is still technically his professor, Newt finds himself with blocks of free time that he uses to over-study for every other course and read for the fun of it. He does a lot of the reading at Hannibal’s, who not only has the promised large bed but also a ridiculous den done up in foil wallpaper and dark wood furniture and a sinfully comfortable couch.

They have sex on that couch a lot. And in the bed. And in the kitchen. And with Newt held up by the sheer bulk of Hannibal as Hannibal fucks him against the entryway wall. It’s a really, really good semester.

They meet Hermann and Vanessa at Hannibal’s a few times for drinks. The first time, Vanessa flat-out lies to Hermann to get him there, and within ten minutes, Hermann and Hannibal are in a biting, sarcastic, nasty argument about the merits of a mathematical theorem, and afterwards--after sex--Newt flops on Hannibal and asks, “Well?”

“Vanessa’s a delight, but I remember that from when she was in class. Your roommate’s an asshole.”

“He’s good people,” Newt says. “I mean, yeah, asshole, but good people.”

“Didn’t say you couldn’t be both.”

At the end of semester, the night before Hermann and Vanessa leave for the summer, Hannibal invites them over for dinner and drinks. They end the night in the den, all of them enjoying a brandy because Hannibal likes theatrics (and Newt’s got no problem with that; it’s hot), and Newt manages not to tell Hermann he’s sitting on a couch where just hours before, he and Hannibal had fucked.

He is officially an adult, he thinks. And it’s pretty all right.


End file.
